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One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
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Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#12Very well written article. Informative, sensible and articulate without going that New Yorker style that I find boring.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#13[flagged]
"Oh, that Python!"
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#14Great article! That said,
the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended.
She has been bitten more times than she can count; though not venomous, pythons possess rows of curved, needle-sharp teeth. .. “Use a floodlight to scan the ground near the truck, and look for an iridescence and a pattern... Shout ‘Python!’ if you think you see something, even if you’re not positive—it’s better to be wrong than to miss one."
ETA: they do eventually reference "researchers using drones", so we're not the only ones to think of that. Not to rejoice in anyone losing their job of course, but I do hope that some automation makes this more feasible.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#15Introducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra might be a more scalable solution. It’s very hard to shoot all the members of an invasive species.
“No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.“
Had to go rewatch it on Youtube... Thanks for that good laugh...
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#16Great article! That said, the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended. ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in…
> ...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this problem?
It takes an average of ten hours of searching per snake during which time they mostly drive around so I don’t think drones are a realistic option here due to flight time. There’s little benefit to searching far beyond the roads/levees because the swamp is a very tough terrain to navigate and it gets dangerous thanks to the gators.
Can’t use (real) night vision googles because any stray light from the car could blind the wearer and it would kill the driver’s peripheral vision making it impractical to drive.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#17Great article! That said, the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended. ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in…
A single shot is unlikely to kill, and in these areas a snake can very quickly disappear into water or foliage. I doubt drones or night vision would help much for similar reasons - the issue lies as much in being able to reach the snakes as it does in being able to locate them. The Everglades are incredibly thick, a snake will easily outpace and hide from a human outside of roads. It does seem like there should be a better way than wrestling them but it's hard to say what that might be.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#18Great article! That said, the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended. ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in…
> "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"
It's not even "as we found it", it's "as it was at a certain arbitrary point in time". I've seen zero proposals to eliminate earthworms, honeybees, or dandelions from the Americas.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#19So when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#20So when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.
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